麻豆社

With half the matches in the current series completed, going into today's contest the 2020 league table looks like this:
1聽 North of England聽 聽 Played 2聽 Won 2聽 Drawn 0聽 Lost 0聽 Total points 40
2聽 South of England聽 聽 P2聽 W1聽 D1聽 L0聽 Pts 37
3聽 Wales聽 聽 P2聽 W1聽 D0聽 L1聽 Pts 38
4聽 Scotland聽 P2聽 W1聽 D0聽 L1聽 Pts 35
5聽 Northern Ireland聽 聽 P2聽 W0聽 D1聽 L1聽 Pts 36
6聽 Midlands聽 聽 P2聽 W0聽 D0聽 L2聽 Pts 36

Tom asked:聽
Who might grant admission to the singer of 'Lily The Pink', the Everly Brothers and a reforming priest, and why?
The answer is Paul McCartney, because these are all people who are named as 'knockin' at the door' or 'ringin' the bell' in the lyrics of the Wings hit 'Let 'Em In'.
The singer of 'Lily the Pink' is 'brother Michael', aka Mike McGear, McCartney's younger brother and lead singer with Liverpool band The Scaffold who took that song to no.1.聽The Everly Brothers are named in the song as 'Phil and Don'; and the priest would be Martin Luther - although it's often thought that the lyric is intended to mean Martin Luther King, rather than the 16th century priest.
There'll be another teaser question to think about at the end of today's edition.

Q1聽 What will this summer's batters have in common with Napoleon's last gasp, the years of contention between England and France, and China's short-lived floral freedoms?
Q2 (from Neil Hadfield)聽 How and why might the following, had they been true, have interested a scientific institute based in Mountain View, California?The annihilation of Woking; the simultaneous conception and birth of children in an English village; and Robin Williams's breakthrough TV role?
Q3 (Music)聽 I would enjoy giving Christmas presents to the first performers but not so much to the second. By the same logic, I would enjoy giving them to Rodney Stoke and even more so to Langton Herring. Why?
Q4 (from Julian White)聽 What number links a marmalade-loving ursine, an X-ray photograph crucial in the history of science, and Homey Airport or Groom Lake?
Q5聽 A fictional spy boss handed a confidentiality notice to a real spy boss. Someone who wasn't yet qualified to drive watched an old adult movie about winning a war. Then I turned up. In which fateful year might all of this have taken place?
Q6 (Music)聽 Can you find a way in to the question?
Q7聽 A barefoot runner, an England captain, the Messiah according to Isaiah and a road defined in 1936: what would be their most natural order?
Q8 (from Anthony Davies)聽 What's similar about all of the following: a singularly risky long bar, a bewildering insulator, something you might steal from the tack room, and an onomatopoeic member of the genus Picus?

If Barker and Corbett encounter, sequentially, Kieslowski's colours, Blyton's adventurers, Tarantino's undesirables and Thurber's timepieces, how many pilots would they meet next?
Enjoy pondering this: we'll have the solution for you next time.